


A Quiet Day

by Aposiopesis



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Autistic Character, Gen, a mouse dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4780952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aposiopesis/pseuds/Aposiopesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Nepeta just likes the quiet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quiet Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FleetSparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/gifts).



> This was my first time writing Nepeta, so I hope she turned out okay!

_*AC stalks her purrey in silence, completely hidden in the shadows, when suddenly she--*_

"Pounces!" Nepeta threw herself at the unsuspecting squeakbeast, quickly scooping it up and trapping it in her hands.

"Ha! _Meow_ I've got you!"

The white rodent struggled against its cage, to no avail.

Pounce meowed at her ward meaningfully.

Nepeta tilted her head. "Oh, you want it? Sure, here you go!" She picked up the squeakbeast by the tail and flicked it over to her lusus, who promptly caught it and swallowed it in a matter of seconds.

"You're supposed to play with it _fur_ -st," Nepeta groaned. Pounce just rubbed up against her side with an appreciative purr.

Nepeta laughed and rubbed Pounce's head. "Silly. I can't stay mad at you!"

Pounce leaned into the motion, and then stretched out lazily. Nepeta sat down, her back snug against Pounce's belly. She ran her hands through the soft fur appreciatively.

Her eyes flicked over to something on the floor. "Hey, I was wondering where that was!"

It was a ball of deep blue yarn that Equius had given her one sweep for Twelfth Perigee's Eve. (That year, she had drawn him a picture of a flexing musclebeast that he would later describe as "abso100tely e%quisite".) She leaned over and, in lieu of picking it up, batted at it playfully. It wasn't her most favorite thing to do with the yarn, but it was kitty tradition, after all, and _someone_ had to do it if Pounce wasn't going to. When it got close enough to her, she picked it up, and started tossing and catching it.

She caught the ball in both hands and rubbed it with her thumbs. She ran the soft material through her hands, weaving it around her fingers as if they were a loom.

Nepeta wasn't stupid; she knew she was different from most trolls. They made weird faces she didn't understand (why couldn't they just use emoticons?) and expected her to do things that made no sense. Even Equius occasionally told her that something she liked to do was "inappropriate" behavior.

Well, okay, a _lot_ of the time.

(Though, sometimes, she wondered if he was like her, except with hoofbeasts and muscles and robots the way she was with art and shipping and role play. She knew deep down Equius wasn't as cold-hearted as his metallic creations.)

Nepeta hummed to herself. It wasn't really a tune, just a sequence of notes that sounded nice together. Beneath her, Pounce yawned and adjusted her legs.

She unthreaded the yarn from her fingers and fed it back through in loose loops. "How do you do Meowbeast's Manger again? Terezi showed me once, but I could ne- _fur_ get the hang of it."

Apparently, Meowbeast's Manger was some kind of elaborate Legislacerator rope trick from thousands of sweeps ago, used to bind the hands of the accused. Terezi had mentioned it in a role play and then shown Nepeta how it worked because she had taken interest in the feline name.

Nepeta really wished Terezi had thought to write the instructions _down_ instead of just saying them out loud, because all she was doing now was getting herself tangled in the yarn. And not in the pretty way that Terezi had done.

"Ugh, so much _fur_ that idea," she said, as she began to extricate herself from the yarn.

Pounce made a noise that might have been a chuckle.

"What's it like to be a lusus?" Nepeta asked, putting the yarn to the side as she pulled it off. "I know you can't talk, but do you ever wish you could?"

Pounce made a small, noncommittal purr.

Nepeta shook her hands excitedly. "Wait, that just gave me a paws-itively wonder- _fur_ -l idea!" She stood up and ran across the room to get her tablet.

Pounce regarded the situation with a sleepy eye and a grunt, annoyed that her charge had vacated the warm spot on her underside.

"Sorry, sorry," Nepeta said. She returned to her furry (and now much happier) seat.

"I'm going to draw a species swap! So it'll be you if you were a troll and me if I were your lusus!"

Pounce cocked her head in interest.

Nepeta started a rough sketch of a trollish figure in green. "Let's see, 'Pounce' actually works as a legal troll name, so that's easy, and… is it _meow_ -kay if I give you my last name?"

Pounce purred deeply.

"I'll take that as a yes." Nepeta wrote "pounce leijon! :33" under the sketch.

"And what about me as a lusus? Do you think I'd be a big fluffy kitty like you?"

The tablet made a soft pinging sound, and a blinking indicator appeared on the side of the screen. Nepeta glanced at it and her eyes lit up. "Oh, hey, Equius is online!"

centaursTesticle [CT] began trolling arsenicCatnip [AC]  
CT: D --> Hi  
AC: :33 < *ac waves a furiendly paw at ct*  
AC: :33 < *she apurroaches him with her tail aloft and says:*  
AC: :33 < have you efur pawndered what it would be like if your lusus were a troll and you were a lusus?  
CT: D --> No  
CT: D --> That would be 100dicrous  
CT: D --> Why do you ask  
AC: :33 < wait and s33! ;33  
CT: D --> I don't want to wait  
CT: D --> You will e%plain at once  
AC: :33 < ok, ok! i was drawing pounce as a troll and me as a lusus, thats all.  
AC: :33 < i was going to tell you after i finished so i could show you the picture, silly.  
AC: :33 < but now i guess... the cats out of the bag! XPP  
CT: D --> F001ishness  
AC: :33 < are you saying you DONT want to s33 what youd look like as a butler?  
CT: D --> Uh  
CT: D --> Not as such  
AC: :33 < s33? d33p down youre a big softy.  
CT: D --> I am not  
AC: :33 < are too!  
CT: D --> No  
AC: :33 < its ok to like things, equius!  
CT: D --> You're beginning to ve% me

Nepeta laughed, causing Pounce to look up at her in confusion. Sometimes, Nepeta got lonely. But right now, she had her cave, her lusus, and her moirail, and it was quiet and calm and perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Meowbeast's Manger is an analogue of Cat's Cradle, though the human version is simply a game played with loops of string.


End file.
